Mark 4:1-20 | Sow and Reap

John 15:5–8 (NIV)

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Last week we talked at length about how we can begin our journey into the generosity of God by doing less and creating space in our crazy busy lives to receive from God’s unlimited resources! Remember if God is your good Shepherd, you lack no good thing! You have all that you need!

The problem is that most of us are to busy doing that we fail to live with the margin to receive from God’s glorious and unlimited resources!

To be generous to others, we need to receive generously from God and that takes time with God.

That’s what I said last week and this is what John 15 reaffirms for us this week!

It reaffirms last week’s message by highlighting a metaphor from nature! Jesus generously invites us to do less! Rather than the tyrannical to do list that most of us live with, Jesus gives us one command. Abide, remain, stay connected to Him as the Vine, the source of life and He’ll do the rest!

And this command comes with a promise, a promise that I believe is at the heart of every human, especially the hearts of us Americans: fruitfulness!

Anyone in here not want to live a fruitful life? Anyone want to feel like they’re spinning their wheels and like they’re terribly inefficient, ineffective, or unproductive?

Yeah, no one. No body wants to be fruitless. We desire to be fruitful, and this desire comes from your creator friend! Jesus here condemns fruitlessness.

Look at it: John 15:6

John 15:6 (NIV)

6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

And then he gives us a judgement to determine the nature of a person’s identity. You’ll know them by their fruit! You’ll know us by our fruit! You’ll know the worth of a Church by its fruit!

John 15:7–8 (NIV)

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Christian, I’m not oversimplifying things here when I say this: Jesus came to make you fruitful! Jesus died and Jesus rose and Jesus makes His home in us so that we would bear much fruit and that by bearing much fruit, people would know that there is a God in heaven who loves them and has a plan for their lives, a plan to bless and not curse them, a plan to a plan to prosper them and not to harm them, a plan to give them hope and a future.

And so, I have a simple question for you, how’s your fruitfulness? Are you free and fruitful in Jesus or not?

If not, fear not, Jesus has the power to turn things around!

And with that, turn with me to Mark 4 and I want to unpack a parable of Jesus with you that I believe unlocks the keys to a free and fruitful life in Jesus, it has to to with our hearts and with our money.

As you’re turning there, let me clue you in on what we’ll read together. We going to see Jesus tell a story of a farmer who represents God or gospel proclaimers who sows seeds of the gospel message and we’ll be exposed to 4 different soils upon which this gospel seed falls. The soils represent the human heart, the ground where the seed is sown and depending on the soil or the hearts condition that is what determines whether the seed bears fruit in a person’s life or not!

So let’s read the parable and Jesus’ interpretation of it, then we’ll talk about it.

Mark 4:1–20 (NIV)

1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. 2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” 9 Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” 10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that, “ ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’” 13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

Ok now, there’s a lot going on here, but I think what Jesus is teaching and what desires for us to be picking up is this: Jesus wants us to cultivate soft and generous hearts, especially with our money, to live free and fruitful lives in Him.

And if you remember from last week, we begin at a similar place. God is insanely generous to us! He is a good shepherd and if He’s our good shepherd we lack nothing!

In Jesus’ parable, the Farmer is God and as such He is generously, indiscriminately sowing seeds of blessing and fruitfulness upon the whole world!

That is the message of the gospel friends. That God loves you. He died for you in Jesus and He has a beautiful plan for your life. A plan to prosper you and not to harm you. A plan to give you hope and an eternal future!

This message is a message of blessing! And God, the good shepherd, the good farmer, He’s just making it rain out there with this seed! He’s got stacks on stacks on stacks and He’s just out there, just make it rain blessing!

And I don’t want to assume the gospel here. This message is that God left Heaven, became like one of His creation, born in a manager, ministered on this earth and then died a criminals death upon a cross, receiving the full weight and wrath of God that our sins deserve. He stayed dead for 3 days, did a victory lamp in Hell to let the enemy know that Jesus had defeated Satan, sin and death and then He rose 3 days later to put an explanation point on this truth and also sow the power of the resurrection into the hearts of anyone who would trust and believe this message. Jesus saves!

This is such a blessed message Church. This message has and is changing the world! It’s changed me. It’s changed million’s of others! It’s a blessing and it’s the most generous and extravagant gift that you have ever or will ever be offered! Jesus takes our junk and gives us everything we need for life and godliness now and forever. The generosity of God on display in the gospel, a farmer sowing seeds doesn’t seem to paint the extravagance enough but this is a picture nevertheless that Jesus has given to us!

So we’ve got a Farmer, Farmer Jesus, sowing seeds of blessing to transform lives with His goodness out in our world! Just making it rain on anyone and everyone.

And this seed, it falls upon 4 different types of soil.

We’ve got hard packed path soil.

We got shallow soil.

We’ve got thorny soil.

And we’ve got the good stuff. The black and sandy, fertile soil of southern Henry county. The stuff vegetables are grown in! The soil that feeds America! Fruitful soil.

And Jesus tells us that these soils represent human hearts.

The hard packed soil represents people who have hard hearts. Life has been hard to them. They’ve been trampled on like a well trodden path and as such they’ve come into agreement with Satan and His lies. They are hardened people who believe things like God is dead or God is evil. They believe that if you want to get ahead in this life, well then you better take what you want no matter what! Might makes right. Survival of the fittest. The ends justify the means! You only live once so live it up now! And any number of other lies.

Because they agree with the lies of the enemy, their hearts are hard and calloused and they can’t or won’t believe the gospel message when they hear it. It’s too good to be true! It’s a crutch for cripples and I ain’t no cripple! They are strong, they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they can and will make a name for themselves! Their hearts are hard and prideful, meaning they either think too much of themselves or they think too low of themselves. Either way, God can’t save them doesn’t want to save them or they don’t need any saving from God at all!

That’s the first soil.

The second soil is shallow soil. These are the “I’ll try anything once people.” These are the spiritual people, the people always chasing a new diet, fad or spiritual practice. Their lives are chaos and they know they need some help so they give Jesus a try, but they’re never truly committed or trusting of Him. Their happy to use Jesus if He can fix their problems and alleviate their suffering, but as soon as Jesus appears to fail them, they’re out!

These people never truly count the cost or understand what Jesus is actually offering to them. They don’t really care. Their God is their stomachs and their own personal comfort! Surely any God that’s worth serving, would serve them by removing all suffering from their lives!

Which is not the gospel friends. We serve a savior who suffered. Jesus was beaten, tortured and crucified and God used the most heinous suffering of the only innocent God and man to bring about the most glorious thing in the universe and heavens! God does not cause suffering, but He does use it and He has a purpose for it! The message of the gospel gives us staying power to suffer well and to show the worth of knowing Jesus admits suffering at times, but it does not offer to any of us an existence free from suffering this side of heaven!

I realize this is a tough pill to swallow and a hard concept to come to grips with, but we must if we are to receive the blessing of the gospel message! Do not harden your hearts to God on this, friends! We need to keep a soft heart and go deep into God’s love, shallow roots will not do!

There is hard heart soil, shallow quick-fix and suffering averse soil, and there is the soil that is thorny.

The first two are no Christians I don’t think. These are people that have no roots in Christ. They might appear to know Jesus for a season, but eventually they get disillusioned, disappointed, and show by their falling away and fruitlessness that they weren’t and never were connected to Jesus. The roots simply were never there.

And you can probably see how cultivating soft hearts towards God is important in regards towards these first 2 heart situations. Jesus said I came for the sick. Healthy people don’t need a doctor. Sick people do. There’s a humility required in us to accept this truth. We are cripples who need Jesus’ healing, beggars who need His generosity, sinners who need His saving, and that saving, while does provide us peace and joy, it does not isolate us from suffering in this life.

The relationship provided with Jesus will sustain us even in suffering, and for us to walk that out, it requires deep roots of relationship into Jesus and genuine faith and trust! It requires not just soft hearts at the beginning but a need to maintain soft hearts as we trust God to allow things in our lives we don’t understand but we trust God is good and will work good through all things!

Let me give you a diagram to explain how we cultivate soft hearts to receive God’s generosity in faith.

Picture from Marcus Warner:

Above the line we have God and below the line we have self. When our eyes are own ourselves, our hearts harden with inferiority and/or pride. We can’t do it and never will be because we’re worthless. Or we can do anything because we’re science and natural selections’ gift to the human race. Inferiority or pride. It hardens our hearts towards God as we move toward and serve ourselves and our self interests.

But if we will lift out eyes above life’s horizon and fix our eyes upon God. Our hearts soften. We realize 2 things in relation to this God: He created us from dust. At our best, we are dust and that cultivates a humility in our hearts, but we’re not just dust, we’re dust with dignity. God made us special in His creation, we bear His image and He’s gifted us to rule and reign upon the physical earth as His image bearers. This gives us humility and also a holy confidence!

Write this down and revisit it time to time. Ask the Lord if you’ve left your gaze wander back to your self and selfishness. Are you feeling pride by way of inferiority or arrogance? If so, lift you eyes back to God, the make of heaven and earth, remember that your dust and humble your heart under you maker, but you’re also dust with dignity as an image bearer and temple of the Holy Spirit and allow Christ to renew your confidence and calling as His ambassador upon this earth!

Receive the generous gospel seed of God by cultivating a soft heart and then cultivate a generous heart to be free and fruitful for God!

That’s the second part of this parable.

When we’ve begun receiving generously from Christ through a saving relationship with Christ well then Jesus tells us that there is one overarching thing we need to focus on to prevent our lives in Him from being choked out and fruitless.

Look at the soil that receives the word but isn’t fruitful. At least 2 and 1/2 of the thorns that choke out God’s word and make it fruitless in a believer’s life has to do with money friends. Look at it.

Mark 4:18–19 (NIV)

18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

At least 2 and a half of the reasons why Christians, don’t bear fruit has to do with money.

They hear God’s word but what? But the message is crowded out, it’s choked out by what? The worries of this life?

Church what is the number one thing that you and I worry about? If it’s not money, then it’s a very close second.

An author I read recently writing on generosity said it like this. He said, “Our instinct is to worry about money, to hustle, to squirrel away enough money to conquer the fear [we feel]. But it doesn’t work. More money does not solve the fear we feel inside. [More money doesn’t bring the freedom we crave or the peace and stress free living we all desire.]

And this isn’t a rich person’s problem alone. Rich and poor worry all the same about money. Some of us worry about keeping it and others of us worry about getting it. Some of us seek after it for security. While others seek it for survival. The more we try to hang on to our money, the more we fear the day when it will sprout wings and fly away.” (Giving Together, pg. 25)

Christ tells us that the worries of the this life can choke out our freedom in Him and the Word’s fruitfulness in our life.

Let’s say that’s at least half about money. What about the next two.

The deceitfulness of wealth, Jesus says is also something that chokes us out. The deceitfulness of wealth puts Christian’s in a choke hold.

Get that image in your head. Imagine it.

A new Christian. He was lost and Jesus found Him, but then He got that raise at work, a promotion. Now he’s able to live better, to buy more, take more vacations. And slowly but surely the deceitfulness of wealth comes in and puts that Christian in a sleeper hold, slowly squeezing off His oxygen, sidelining him in the Kingdom of God. It’s not that the fella isn’t saved, but he’s settled to build his own kingdom with His wealth, rather than build the Lord’s!

Listen to Proverbs 11:24-26

Proverbs 11:24–26 (NLT)

24 Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything. 25 The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. 26 People curse those who hoard their grain, but they bless the one who sells in time of need.

Church we have been sold a bag of goods when it comes to money and possessions!

Our World has discipled us in it’s thinking and it’s ways! We’ve been brainwashed to believe that HAVING = HAPPINESS! But this is upside down from what God says! God says that greed is not the avenue to happiness. Jesus says that generosity is the key to freedom and fruitfulness! Receiving God’s generosity to us through Christ and then releasing the same generosity we receive from Him to others, that is the key to fruitfulness and freedom in the Kingdom of God!

Christian, you’ve been lied to! Having does not equal happiness! Solomon said it in Proverbs and Jesus confirmed it in the New Testament. It is more blessed to give than to receive!

So we’re up to 1 and half. The worries of this life. That’s at least half about money. The deceitfulness of wealth. That’s a full point about money and lastly, desire for other things. This is greed! Living for the next thing. How much is enough, well just a little bit more. Again, I think we can chalk that up to a full point having to deal with money and the things it can buy.

The key to living a fruitful life friends is to receive the generosity of God to us in Jesus with a soft heart, accept it’s truth, release it’s power generously through you which will produce a harvest of fruitfulness in our lives!

Church here’s the deal, if money is your safety net, it will choke your faith. If money is your identity, it will rob you of your God-given purpose. But if money is a tool, given by God and stewarded for His purposes, it becomes a means to freedom, joy, and fruitfulness.

Take a step back me and look once again at John 15. Jesus invites us to a radical mindset shift. In John 15, He says the secret to bearing fruit isn’t hustling harder; it’s abiding deeper. Think about that. Fruitfulness isn’t about accumulation; it’s about connection. It’s about drawing life from the Vine, trusting that Jesus will supply everything you need and more.

But here’s the thing: abiding isn’t passive. It’s active trust. It’s letting go of the illusion of control, including control over our finances, and saying, “God, I trust You with this.” That’s why generosity is such a crucial marker of fruitfulness. When we let go of our grip on money, it loosens its grip on us.

And to end this morning I want to do 2 things. I want to celebrate the generosity of God and the fruitfulness of what He’s enabled this Church to do over the last 3 years.

Church, this is crazy. All this is in the Annual report, so don’t freak out if you don’t get all of the info. It’s in that brochure.

Church God has given generously to us as a people here at Crossroads. This facility is amazing. And God keeps sending us more people to fill it up and get them found and on the path way to freedom in Him. Our numbers are growing in tons of keys areas. We have more people in connect groups, more connect groups. We have more people serving. Our giving continues on it’s upward trend, which means more ministry is being enabled. We’ve launched equip classes and supported global missions and local missions. God is growing us generously and He’s doing it through us as a His people!

For the last 3 years many, many of you have made deep sacrifices to your personal budgets to give to the ministry here and the building campaign, and because of that God is fueling our mission! Which join me in praising God for a second.

I look around and, the growth, the ministry, the transforming lives, the freedom! Church 3 years ago we set out to shift into a higher gear of helping the lost get found and the found live free and God is doing it through us!

So let’s celebrate that, but as our 3 year capitol campaign draws to a close in 2 weeks, let’s finish strong and keep our foot on the gas!

Church, God has exceedingly and abundantly more for us to do!

More people, means this 500 seat worship center is quickly filling up. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to limit the amount of people God wants to find and set free, this means eventually, we’re going to have to go to 2 services or more!

That means we’re going to need more volunteers to serve in our children’s ministry because we don’t want to divide God’s family over kids or no kids between services! So we’ll need more people to give of their time to serve in that ministry as well as others from our connect team to our connect groups!

God has more for Crossroads to do! And for us to continue to steward the fruit God provides and continue producing good fruit as a Church, we’re going to have to keep cultivating soft and generous hearts towards Him.

We need your continued generosity to fuel the mission!

So here’s all I want to do today. Don’t hear this as Levi asking me for money. Loved one, God doesn’t need your money, but remember this, your money, it ain’t really yours. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. We, we are only stewards. So here’s what I’m asking from you 3 things:

Soften your heart! Humble yourself before the Lord. Lift you eyes off yourself and up to the Lord. REmember His kindness and generosity towards you and invite him to search your heart. Is there any pride, selfishness or inferiority He needs to root out.

Also, pray. Pick up the annual report and praise God for the goodness represented it. Also, prayer for me and the leadership here! We’ve got some strategic planning we need to do to figure what’s best next and how best to structure for the MORE we see that God has for us as a Church. Pray for us and pray for wisdom and guidance from the Spirit for the when and how to go to multiple services and the next staffing hires and facilities needs to try and tackle.

And lastly, pray for how God might have you partner more with what He’s doing here with this little outpost of His Kingdom. You’ll see the proposed budget for 2025 in the annual report, that budget is a budget for the things we know God has for us for sure next year, but I have a sneaking expectation, anticipation, that God might have more than we’ve planned for, which could use more dollars to achieve. Also, you’ll see we have some debt to pay down.

God’s already done abundantly more than we’ve asked Him to do with this and right now the management team is look at trying to pay off our mortgage in the next 8-9 years, but I’ll be honest Church, I’ll be shocked and my faith in God says, that’s only going to take us 3-5. Which is a good thing. That 12000 dollars going to pay off this facility would be great to unleash towards more staff members to enable more ministry!

Also, our youth groups on Wednesday night are growing at a pretty crazy rate. The space we have is working, but looking ahead and in faith believing in the MORE that God has for us. Who knows, we might need to start thinking about a though complex in our Church’s future.

And I know, if you’re like me, you might have a bit of a knee jerk response to that. How could you say something like that with the debt we are currently holding? Levi don’t write checks we can’t cash. I hear you. My heart hears you on that more than you know, but Church let me remind you what God has done over the past 3 years. We’ve paid out 1 million dollars in cash for this construction project and done a lot of really really good ministry along the way!

I don’t know about you, but I’m done limiting God. Does it test my faith to dream big. You bet your socks it does. This is hard for me. How can we keep up, how can we pay for all this. Who should we hire next. Can we even afford to do that. I hear it all, but folks, you and me, let’s stay close to Jesus. Let’s be wise and stay close to Jesus and if He’s calling us to it, well then let’s remember the truth. He equips the called! And folks God is calling us to MORE!

And I for one feel thrilled that He’s invited me to be apart of this work! Join me in it if you like! Let’s produce some more fruit for Jesus, 30, 60, 100 times more!

Cultivate a Soft and Generous Heart, Especially with Your Finances, to Be Free and Fruitful in Christ and lest fuel the mission together!